Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series has been called the "new Harry Potter", and after reading Twilight I can see why. Meyer brings her own twist to the vampire body of legend, and creates a highly readable story with a high school protagonist set in a damp corner of the Pacific Northwest. After reading Twilight, I was eager to engage in a discussion with someone about vampire lore, and what they could and couldn't do in the Twilight world. It's missing the incantations and wizarding minutiae of Harry Potter, but in return, we get vampires that at turns sexy and scary or scary and sexy. The mundane high school social problems are about as interesting as they are in Harry Potter: backdrop to the more dramatic action of the supernatural. I'm an adult reader who has no shame about picking up an engaging young adult book, especially in the fantasy genre (Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, etc.). Twilight is a little less fun, because it's less fantastic - my days of being really caught up in who sat next to whom in homeroom are over. What Twilight has that Harry (mostly) doesn't have is the romance component. There's a unique sexual tension created by the knowledge that for human Ella and vampire Edward to go past first base (or much further anyway, the book is a little vague) will mean Ella's becoming a vampire, and leaving life as she knows it. I eagerly got through the imposingly thick Twilight in about a day in a half, and I look forward to the rest of the series. Don't forget, the book is always better than the movie, so read Twilight before the film comes out!

OK, so when I first heard about this book, I was skeptical. Vampires? Hmmm. For some strange reason I bought it anyway. I absolutely love this book and could not put it down. Anyone who is a sucker for a good romance story will as well. The book is extremely detailed and as you read you really get a sense of how the girl feels and, I think, it is quite realistic. I don't know much about vampire lore and all that, but it is nice to see a vampire in a good sense and this book makes me want to date one. My only complaint about the series is that the first 2/3rds of the books don't really seem to have a lot going on (all though you still find yourself not able to put it down), and in the last 3rd, the action gets squeezed in.

If you are looking for a book with a huge amount of substance, double entendres, allegories and what not, well this probably isn't the book for you. But if you want a book where you can get entirely wrapped up in the story and find yourself thinking about the characters even while you're not reading, definitely the one.

If I could give this book, and the rest of the series more than 5 stars, I would. Stephanie Meyers has written an amazing book that keeps your attention going throughout the whole book. I bought the first book out of sheer curiosity. Once I started reading it, I was only 1/2 way through the 1st book, and ordered the 2nd for next day shipping because I couldn't wait to get it. The book is great because Meyers uses typical ideas of vampires, while spinning her own. She makes you feel so drawn into the book, and has your imagination going a mile a minute, while you feel like you're in Bella's shoes. You feel like you're living the experiences, not just reading about them. I would suggest this series to anyone. They've quickly become my favorite books.

When a friend recommended this book to me I didn't think anything of it. Then another friend...and another...and finally I gave it a go and OMG am I happy that I did. This book was probably one of the most intense, exciting, and romantic stories I have read in a while. I love the characters, their complicated relationships, and how it comes together in a sort of supernatural Romeo/Juliet kind of way. A die hard Buffy fan in my teens (I am 24 now), this book has reignited my obsession for vampire love stories.

Bella is a new student in high school when she meets inhumanly handsome Edward. Despite their initial antagonism, the two are drawn inexorably into a passionate romance with one major complication: Edward is a vampire. The Twilight series is a recent young adult phenomenon with a bastion of rabid fans as well as many critics. Personally, I found Twilight neither good enough to love or bad enough to joyfully mock. Although it is fluffy and immature, the book begins well--but midway through it takes a sharp turn into the absurd and quickly degenerates. As a result, this book is entirely mediocre, and I don't recommend it.

The tragedy of Twilight (for me, at least) is that it's an enjoyable book go horribly wrong. That isn't to say that the premise is brilliant, but there is something good there. The book begins with a standard "new student" YA trope, and Bella is an unremarkable and vaguely irritating protagonist. But things turn around when she meets Edward. Enigmatic and mercurial, he is immediately attractive and secretive enough to be fascinating. The early stages of his relationship with Bella is also intriguing--his vampirism is comically predictable, but the gradual revelation of his personality is much more complex and interesting. So the first half of the book goes on: the protagonist is annoying, the prose is lengthy fluff in dire need of an editor, but Edward is intriguing and the story captures the reader's interest.

Until the middle of the book, that is. Almost exactly halfway through, Edward steps into direct sunlight and sparkles. Sparkling vampires epitomizes the Twilight series's foolish fluff, but it also marks the change in Twilight from enjoyment to pure absurdity. Edward sparkles, and then in quick succession Edward cleanly dumps his entire life story on Bella, Edward turns out to be a creepy stalker, Edward and Bella fall madly in love, an antagonist shows up for a long slew of action sequences that feel out of place against the rest of the book, some predictable and exaggerated angst ensues, and then Bella begins her campaign to have Edward turn her into a vampire before she gets "old." The protagonist remains irritating, the prose is still rambling fluff, but there is no longer a fascinating character or any gradual developments to make the book worthwhile or even enjoyable. Even the absurdity is more frustrating than it is funny: unrealistic, stereotypical, and (in Bella's premature, all-consuming love and Edward's stalkerish tendencies) a bit disturbing.

I liked Edward in the first half of the book, and wish that the second half continued in the same vein. Failing that, I wish that Twilight were as wonderful as fans claim or as laughably bad as detractors say. If it were either extreme, it might be fun to read. As it is, Twilight is enjoyable and then absurd without reaching an extreme at either end. It is conflicted. It is middling. It is average and entirely mediocre. It certainly doesn't deserve the fervor that it's received, but it's not particularly fun to mock, either. I'm not sorry to have read this book, and there's no strong reason to avoid it--there are worse novels, and this one is a brief waste of time. Neither do I recommend it. The book just isn't worth reading and there are many better YA and vampire novels out there.